Sonnet to Orpheus II.3

Mirrors: no-one yet has knowing written
what you in your nature are.
You, as with mere holes of sieves
replete intervals of time.

You, still wastrels of the empty hall—
when dusk falls, wide as woods...
and the lustre like a sixteen-pointer goes
through your impassability.

Sometimes you are full of painting.
Some seem gone into you— 
others you send shy away.

But the fairest will stay, till
yonder in your clenched cheeks
pierces clear unloosed Narcissus.

 

 Rainer Maria Rilke